


The Gift of Giving

by katalicz



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Family Fluff, Friendship, Gen, and goes a bit mad with it lmao, this is pure fluffy nonsense, tiny bit of pre-bliban but its minor, twitch takes up knitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 07:34:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14397300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katalicz/pseuds/katalicz
Summary: Twitch takes up knitting to make Montagne some socks for his birthday.It gets a bit out of hand.





	The Gift of Giving

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be another short character study but once again it ran away from me. if theres any errors just let me know because i dont have a beta

Montagne doesn’t like the cold.

All his team mates are aware of this - he wears scarves and hats and gloves in all seasons but summer (and even then, sometimes, given England’s topsy-turvy weather), and his dorm shared with Rook and Doc is the warmest in the base by far.

Doc claims that it’s his age - Montagne is rightfully offended at that and claims that he’s always hated the cold, thank you very much, but admits after receiving a stern look that maybe he’s feeling it a bit more in his joints these days than he used to. He insists that there’s no reason to worry or to make a fuss, but if there’s one thing Doc is good at outside of work it’s making a fuss, and Rook and Twitch are more than happy to follow his lead to keep their mentor comfortable.

So, the dorm room is kept warmer than ever (Rook sometimes slips into Twitch and IQ’s shared room and sleeps on a duvet on the floor during the particularly hot summer nights. Twitch does the opposite if the temperature drops too much, the four of them squashing into three beds pushed together), and Rook buys him the most hideous pair of fuzzy slippers he can find. Doc gives him supplement tablets and books him more sessions with the masseuse that visits the base every other week, and Twitch notices that their beds are pushed together permanently now when she pops into their dorm.

(“It’s for warmth!” Doc insists when Twitch teases him about it, but the blush on his face says otherwise, and Twitch and Rook high five over the fact that their 'dads' have finally stopped living in denial. Rook sometimes joins them in the makeshift double bed and often receives a sleepy smooch on the cheek meant for the beds other occupant, but he doesn’t mind in the slightest.)

Twitch doesn’t really know what to do to help, other than make copious amounts of hot chocolate and make sure there’s always warm towels in the airing cupboard, but the weather is getting colder and she’s considered starting knitting again - it’d be something to do that isn’t coding and soldering and maths, and it would keep Doc from complaining that she’s overworking - so she decides to get started and make Montagne the thickest, softest socks possible for his birthday.

She goes to town with IQ to buy some wool and needles, and if IQ has to abandon her there for almost two hours whilst she goes food shopping, rolling her eyes as Twitch moons over dark blue cashmere, then nobody has to know.

She works in her room to stop the others catching a hint of what she’s making (she wants this to be a surprise, dammit), occasionally assisted by IQ who is _excellent_ at unpicking knots and fetching coffee, and Twitch usually ends up calling her mum back home in France to let her talk her through the familiar motions.

It takes a couple of tries and several misshapen woolly tubes (which IQ steals to use as whiteboard cleaners in the workshop) but Twitch ends up with three beautiful pairs of socks, all in GIGN blue and all perfect, right down to the toes. IQ gives her a high five, some wrapping paper, and cheerful instructions to clear up the piles of wool now scattered around their room.

-

When Twitch shyly presents the squishy bundle to Montagne at his birthday breakfast (a tradition on base that Mute and Pulse are missing out on, both being on missions), he rolls his eyes playfully at her and says, “Really, you shouldn’t have.”

It’s their tradition - Twitch _loves_ birthdays and Montagne doesn’t care about his in the slightest, and will tease Twitch and Twitch alone that she puts far too much effort into giving gifts (which is probably true, considering the rest of the base generally give each other alcohol or chocolate or something ridiculous, like the can of hairspray Bandit presented Sledge with a few months ago).

She shrugs and tells him to get on with it, the handful of nosey base-side operators falling silent again as Montagne tears into the parcel.

Montagne shakes them out and peers at them before turning to Twitch, a broad smile spreading across his face.

“Did you make these?” he asks incredulously, and Twitch can’t help the pride that swells in her chest.

She nods and is pulled into a hug before she can reply.

“They’re wonderful!” Montagne says before letting her go and fondly ruffling her hair. “How long did they take?”

“A week, once I remembered how to make them,” she says with a grin.

“I knew you were my favourite for a reason,” Montagne says happily, ignoring Rooks playful ‘ _hey!’_ as he carefully puts the soft bundle on top of his pile of gifts.

“It’s no big deal, I’m glad you like them,” Twitch says cheerfully, and swats Rook across the chest to get him to stop pouting at her.

“You’re an _angel_ ,” Montagne says again, and Doc fondly rolls his eyes as he motions for IQ to pass over her four packages, one from each of her team mates and two of them likely to be something weird.

(The other three are away with the FBI in California running a month-long protection detail and apparently trying their best not to die of heatstroke. IQ has already shown Twitch a series of photos of a cheerful Jäger, a tired Blitz and a very miserable Bandit, the latter two with awful sunburn around their eyes. IQ is at home thanks to a broken ankle and is eternally grateful for it.)

“Come on, we don’t have all day,” Doc says as he passes the pile over to Montagne, who accepts them with a smile at IQ and a cheerful _‘yes, dear,’_ to Doc.

Twitch thinks that that’s the ends of it, and decides to use the left-over wool to start making her mum a quilt.

It’s not the end of it in the slightest.

 -

“So,” IQ says a week later whilst they’re busy in the workshop. “You’re still knitting, right? You enjoy it?”

“You know I do,” Twitch says, rummaging through her tool box in search of a screwdriver. Something’s rattling inside one of her drones and it’s both slowing it down and really pissing her off. “You were literally sat watching me in the common room yesterday.”

IQ stops scribbling away at the whiteboard and turns to look at Twitch, expertly balanced on one crutch, the other slung across her desk. “Well yes, but I didn’t want to just _assume_ , that’s rude.”

Twitch finds the screw driver and emerges from the tool box to look at IQ, eyebrows raised. IQ pouts cutely. Twitch has a growing suspicion that she wants something.

“What do you want?” she asks.

“I was wondering if you’d be able to make me some mittens,” IQ says sheepishly. “I have bad circulation and I can’t type in gloves. And those socks you made were so nice, I haven’t seen Monty take them off yet.”

“I hope he has, he’ll get smelly feet,” Twitch says, nose scrunching at the thought. “And don’t let Doc hear you say that, he’ll have you on iron tablets.”

“Exactly! Which is why I’d _love_ some mittens, and if they’re handmade then all the better, especially when you’re so talented at knitting!”

Twitch’s eyebrows raise further. Flattery will get IQ nowhere, but she’s right. Twitch enjoys knitting, and making mittens will be a lot more interesting than making one big rectangle.

“What kind? Ones with a detachable flap, yes?”

“Please, yes,” IQ says with a sweet smile that she knows Twitch can’t refuse. She’s clearly spent too long around IQ; the German knows her far too well.

Twitch rolls her eyes and goes back to her drone. “I suppose I can _try_ ,” she says, sighing dramatically. “They might look a bit odd, but I’m willing to give it a go.”

“Thankyou!” IQ says, grinning happily before turning back to the whiteboard. “I’ll get you some of that tea you like next time I’m in town.”

“You mean you wouldn’t anyway?” Twitch asks playfully.

“Well, yes, but it makes me feel better that I give you something in return!” IQ replies. Twitch doesn’t have to look to know she's pouting again.

“Don’t worry about it. I have run out of wool though, so you’ll need to get me some in a colour you like. And buttons.”

“Of course. I’m going to town tomorrow, I’ll get some then!”

 -

Twitch is shipped out on a mission to Poland three days later, and uses the time waiting for intel to get started on IQ’s mittens. She’d picked out lilac wool, because IQ loves purple and has no fashion sense whatsoever, but hey. Whatever makes her happy.

The mittens turn out surprisingly well - Doc helps her sew the fuzzy parts together because he’s far better at sewing than she is (it takes him a few tries to make the stitches small enough for Twitch’s liking, because the only thing he’s been sewing recently is skin, which needs far more force than wool), and Rook teases that she’s going to become the bases’ slave if she keeps taking requests, before promptly asking for a sweater.

Twitch isn’t sure of he’s being serious or not, but looks up the most hideous patterns the internet has to offer and saves them to a file on her laptop. She can make him one for his birthday, maybe.

 -

IQ adores the mittens.

“They’re beautiful!” she gasps when Twitch tosses them over to her in the midst of unpacking her bag. IQ pulls them on immediately and waves cutely at Twitch, beaming broadly.

“They’d be nicer if they weren’t such an awful colour,” Twitch teases with a grin of her own, expertly dodging the pillow launched her way.

“Fuck off, you have no taste! Everything would be grey and blue and brown if you had your way, you bore!” IQ says, collecting the pillow and settling down onto Twitch’s bed to watch her unpack. She’s off her crutches now, Twitch is pleased to see – she’d been getting a bit snappy about missing out on training.

Twitch ignores the insult and cocks an eyebrow in IQ’s direction. “Are you going to help or just sit there looking pretty?”

“I’m _always_ pretty, you know that,” IQ says, winking cheerfully. “And I don’t want to touch your sweaty clothes, thanks. I’ll buy you a drink if you come down to the pub, though. The boys are back today, they’ve promised me gossip.”

“Sure,” Twitch says easily. “I need to let Doc check me over but I’ll come by when he’s done.”

 -

When Twitch eventually arrives at the pub, flanked by Rook and Castle (Doc and Montagne are still on base, the former arguing with Thermite over the burns on his arms and the latter making sure Doc doesn’t stay up all night filling in reports), she’s immediately summoned by IQ, who’s sat with her tired looking team at the small table next to the window. She tells Rook she’ll see him later, ignores the way he waggles his eyebrows at her, and wanders over to slide into the armchair next to IQ. She greets them cheerfully, accepts the drink IQ pushes into her hand and successfully hides her smile at the sight of the sunburn across Blitz and Bandit’s eyes, which is much more impressive in person.

“How was the mission?” she asks the trio (or duo - Bandit is slouched low into the couch he’s sharing with Blitz, eyes closed and seemingly asleep.). She’d meant to ask Ash, but she’d been too preoccupied watching the familiar argument between Thermite and Doc to remember.

“It was good!” says Jäger, who looks to be the most well rested of the lot and isn’t sunburnt at all. Blitz snorts quietly. “They didn’t really need us, just our gadgets, so there was a lot of standing around. I don’t think Blitz even needed to be there, but we ended up clearing out a cell so it’s probably a good thing he was.”

“I won’t come next time, if that’s how you feel,” Blitz says teasingly.

Jäger flips him off. "That’s not what I meant, you know I appreciate you!"

“You do when I save your ass, that’s for sure.”

“Anyway!” IQ says before the pair can fall into their usual playful bickering. She lifts her now mitten adorned hands and wiggles her fingers. “Look what Twitch made me!”

Bandit cracks open one eye and hoarsely says, “They’re hideous.”

IQ gapes at him. Twitch grins.

“They’re _lilac_!” IQ says.

“ _Exactly_ ,” the other four say in unison. Twitch laughs at the startled look on Bandit’s face as he heaves himself up and prods Blitz in the side until he passes him his drink.

IQ looks offended. “It doesn’t even matter about the colour, look how nice they are!”

“I can probably do better,” Twitch says with a shrug. IQ shoots her a glare.

“I don’t care,” she huffs. “I love them and I’m eternally grateful to you for making them.” She stands up and downs the last of her pint. “Anyone want a refill? Not that you deserve them.”

“Yes please,” Blitz says, passing her his glass and settling back against the couch, arm resting along the back, just brushing Bandit’s shoulders. Twitch doesn’t miss the way Bandit leans onto it, eyes half closed, or the eyeroll Jäger sends their way, and makes a note to ask him for the gossip later.

“You’ve taken up knitting, then?” Blitz asks with a cheerful smile.

Twitch smiles back. “Yes. I used to do it with my mum, and wanted to make something for ‘Tagne’s birthday.”

Blitz’s smile softens and something flickers in his eyes. “My mum used to knit, too. She made the nicest scarves I’d ever seen.”

Twitch makes a mental note to make him something for Christmas. Not a scarf, perhaps, because she places the odd look as one of sadness and doesn’t miss the use of past tense. She’ll make him some socks, maybe, because she adores Blitz. He’s supportive and kind and always has time to listen to her worries or cheer her up - he deserves a nice, fluffy gift.

Bandit leans a bit further into Blitz’s side. The dim lights make the bags under his eyes look like bruises, which, knowing him, they may well be. “You could teach Jäger,” he says with a pointed look in Jäger’s direction. “It might stop him tapping all the damn time.”

The table, which Twitch had barely noticed was jiggling slightly, stops moving, and Jäger sticks his tongue out at Bandit. He receives the middle finger in return. Blitz sighs.

Twitch isn’t sure if Bandit’s joking or not (it’s always a gamble), but Jäger tilts his head in her direction and looks sheepish.

“I mean, if you wouldn’t mind trying, it might help. I just fidget if there’s nothing to do.”

Bandit frowns. “Or if you’re listening to music, or flying, or watching a film, or eating or waiting -“

Blitz jabs him in the side and he cuts off with a barely audible yelp.

“Ignore him, he’s not had enough sleep,” Blitz says, rolling his eyes affectionately. Bandit huffs and slouches down, head coming to rest on Blitz’s arm. He mutters something to Blitz, who rolls his eyes again and replies in rapid German. Twitch leaves them to it and turns her attention to Jäger, who’s watching them with a pained expression.

He’s a smart guy, Twitch knows - how hard could teaching him something so simple be?

She smiles at him. “You’ll have to get your own needles, but I’m happy to try if you’re being serious. Just let me know when you’re free.”

“Wait, really?” Jager asks, looking genuinely surprised. Twitch nods.

“Sure. Then you can help me with the quilt I’m making.”

Jäger beams. “That’d be great, thank you!”

And that is how Twitch gains an apprentice.

 -

Jäger is a _nightmare_ to teach.

They spend half an hour of the first session gossiping about Blitz and Bandit (who are both flirting desperately, but completely and _painfully_ oblivious to the others attempts. “It’s _awful_ ,” Jäger says, “They’re so _stupid_.”)

(Twitch suggests locking them in a room together. Jäger’s eyes gleam mischievously.)

The rest of the session is a mess, Jäger too distracted to concentrate and Twitch exhausted from a six-hour practice raid, and they call it a day when the Americans stumble drunkenly into the common room and put on a Disney film.

The second and third attempts don’t go much better, because Jäger is still easily distracted and constantly moving around, and needs instructions repeating several times before they seem to sink in. Twitch is slowly reaching her wits end, but their saviour arrives in the form of Bandit, who pokes his head into the common room, takes one look at Jäger and Twitch’s pained expression, turns on the tv, tosses a huge bar of chocolate at Jäger before disappearing again.

Within half an hour, Jäger is knitting better than Twitch is, if a bit slower, intently watching the game show on the tv and calling out most of the right answers, nibbling away at the chocolate as he does so.

So, she gains an assistant, whose abilities quickly usurp her own, and it becomes a non-work-related thing the pair of them do a few times a week. They’ll squash onto the couch at movie night and work away at the quilt together, or sit in Twitch’s room and gossip, because for someone so tactless, Jäger is _excellent_ at overhearing things and has no qualms about sharing them.

Bandit is happy because Jäger is doing something with himself and Blitz is overjoyed at the slightly wonky black throw Jäger presents to him two days after learning how to make one.

 -

Twitch is on a mission in Spain, meeting the pair of new operators (she immediately sent a sneaky picture of Mira’s biceps to IQ, because IQ is a useless lesbian and is likely to make a complete fool of herself in front of Mira, who is _exactly_ her type, unless she’s given time to prepare for her arrival) when Kapkan appears in the break room of the police station they’re using as a base and settles down opposite to her, a bundle of his wool in his hand.

She learns that Kapkan makes Glaz’s hats and Tachanka’s balaclavas, and that Fuze refuses to touch anything woollen (but Kapkan is determined to make him something). Upon returning to base, two become three and they have to move to the bigger sofa to be able to work on Twitch’s quilt, which is coming along _beautifully_.

 -

As Christmas approaches, Twitch finds herself busier than ever. The team run a series of week-long raid in Russia, which she isn’t needed for but the rest of her squad is, so she spends the time making Doc a tea cosy for his beloved china teapot, and Rook the ugliest sweater of all time. She makes Montagne some fingerless gloves so he can play the piano with warm hands (he hates playing with gloves on and says it ruins the sound of the music, which makes no sense to Twitch at all but she doesn’t know enough about music to argue).

She makes Blitz some socks and a hat to match the sweater Jäger is making him, and sneakily measures the dimensions of Bandit’s batteries to make him some multicoloured covers for them. IQ gets a sweater made in the same awful lilac as her mittens, and Jäger shows her a pattern for an odd hat-beard combination, which they make three of together (one for Pulse, one for Sledge and one big one to fit over Tachanka’s helmet).

She makes hats for everyone else (she had planned to make Ash a nice throw, but Ash is allergic to wool and Twitch hasn’t been able to find the one brand she can tolerate in the craft shop) and buys them their favourite alcohol or chocolate to make up the rest, which she knows from experience is the best gift and will receive no complaints at all.

She finishes a week before Christmas, hands sore from the repetitive motions and significantly poorer thanks to the price of cashmere wool (she’ll settle for nothing less - the team work hard and they deserve nice things), but satisfied with the bundle of gifts now hidden in her closet. She’s a bit sick of the sight and feel of wool, by now, but it’ll be worth it to give everyone something special.

When IQ returns from the Russian mission, she stares at the mountain in the closet and shakes her head in bemusement.

“I think you might have a problem,” she tells Twitch as she inspects the blisters on her fingers, and she’s probably right, but Twitch had enjoyed it and that is all that matters.

-

She passes out her gifts early to those that are returning home for the holidays, and the pictures she’s sent of various operators in their snazzy new gifts make her grin nonstop for a week. (Pulse looks exactly as ridiculous as she’d hoped, and Sledge apparently has a dog who looks very fetching with a purple knitted beard. Glaz sends her a very sweet message of thanks, accompanied by a picture of the four Spetsnaz operators on their home base, all wearing their matching hats and the red bow ties she’d watched Kapkan make two weeks ago.)

-

They eat nothing but cake on Christmas day and play an absurd amount of monopoly (that Doc somehow always wins at, much to Castle and Ash’s disgust), but it’s the present opening that Twitch loves the most, because seeing the looks of joy on everyone’s faces makes the sores on her hands and the three weeks of her life lost to woolly hell worth it.

Blitz hugs her upon opening his present, babbling unintelligibly but happily in a mash of German and French and English, having drunk half a bottle of whiskey and looking ridiculous in his massive new sweater that comes down to the middle of his thighs. Bandit snorts with laughter at his battery-hats and piles them on Blitz’s head, and IQ squeals at her sweater before getting into another cheerful argument with Ash about the colour. Twitch and Jäger had come to an agreement not to make each other anything, but she gives him a red hat all the same, and cackles with laughter as he sheepishly gives her a blue one in return.

It’s her squads’ reactions that she’s looking forwards to the most, though, and she waits with anticipation as Montagne opens his parcel to reveal his gloves.

He pulls her into a hug and kisses her on the forehead, beaming widely and vowing to play her something from the new book of music Doc had given him. Doc laughs himself silly at the rooster-shaped tea cosy he receives (he’s had far too much mulled wine already, and Rook is secretly videoing him to use as blackmail for when he tries to tell them off for drinking too much in the future).

Rook opens his sweater last and shudders at the garish, multicoloured reindeer design it’s adorned with, but pulls it on anyway before smothering Twitch in a hug.

There’s nowhere else she’d rather be, Twitch decides as she accepts the mug of tea IQ offers her and settles back into the biggest sofa, tucked under Montagne’s arm and watching Blitz and Bandit stumble after each other in the hallway, trying their best to avoid the mistletoe Jäger had hung up in an attempt to _'sort their shit out'_. She misses her family, for sure, but the team have become a family of their own and it’s _great_.

Rook comes to squeeze himself into the tiny gap on her other side, handing her a trio of forks to distribute to Montagne and Doc before passing over a cake for them all to share. Montagne is wearing his gloves and Doc has put his tea cosy on top of the badly decorated Christmas tree in the place of honour and safely out of harm’s way.

Twitch is more than content to eat nothing but cake and watch all of the _Die Hard_ films and lose yet again at monopoly before falling asleep on the sofa, surrounded by some of the people she loves most.

(She wakes in the morning under her huge knitted quilt, propped up against Montagne and with Rook draped across her lap. The four Germans are asleep, curled up together in a heap in front of the fire, and Ash winks at her from her place next to Castle on the smaller sofa. Any homesickness Twitch might have had left vanishes completely, because despite the carnage and the bloodshed and the fighting, she _loves_ her job.)

(She does vow to not knit anything for anyone for at least a month, though, because holy _shit_ her blisters hurt.)

(She makes Jackal a scarf a week later all the same.)

**Author's Note:**

> This is full of various headcannons again - it's good fun to explore the characters  
> If you haven't seen a beanie-beard, i absolutely recommend looking them up because they're great lmao  
> I take requests but i'm studying a lot rn so they might be a bit slow coming out at the moment!  
> http://cronulicious.tumblr.com/


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